Friday 23^rd January – Day at Sea.

 

The Red Sea was blue this morning! It’s 28 degrees and sunny! (Sorry if there’s snow outside, Rebecca!). We managed to spend a whole hour in the sun before it got too hot. We had received a summons from the pursers office (called “reception” on Voyager!) to complete and sign our visa applications for Thailand, Cambodia, Singapore, Vietnam and Hong Kong. Took us about 20 minutes which was time well-spent considering it took us nearly four hours to cross over into Argentina from Chile when we did one of our overland trips on the previous voyage.

 

In the afternoon we had our wine tasting in the Todd English restaurant. Out of 2600 passengers, only 10 of us had booked in! There were five sommeliers and two chefs between the ten of us – and it was fabulous! We tasted five wines (ranging from $82 to $165 a bottle) and had complimentary food. Can’t help feeling however that they would get more custom if they reduced their “nominal” charge a bit! (And no! we didn’t take them up on their offer to purchase any of the wine)

 

Quote of the Day – from the Captain. “At this speed, the Red Sea is about two days long”

 

When we booked this cruise there were going to be two stops in Egypt but because of the political situation, this was changed and we were going to stop in Jordan (for Petra) instead. Unfortunately this was also cancelled (because of the Suez Canal delay). We are now going to Muscat in Oman - but the ship went ahead with its Egyptian Ball as planned. (Talk about “this is what you could have won”!) We saw lots of men in dinner suits with Fez’s or tea-towels on their heads (very politically correct) and women wearing what looked like bed sheets. Not what we would call “like minded passengers” at all – we went to the show put on by the entertainments team instead. It was an odd combination… the singers and dancers tribute to Sting!! followed by more comedy juggling..

 

We noticed that the ship was dark again and the security men were back out patrolling the decks…

 

Saturday 24^th January – Day at Sea.

 

It’s two weeks today since we joined – doesn’t feel like it. 11 out of the 14 days have been at sea (well, they do call it a cruise) and we are now 3 hours ahead time wise.

 

The Red Sea was rather grey today. Force 9 gale but still hot and humid outside (if you can keep your feet) The ship is immensely more stable than Voyager – we wouldn’t know we were in a gale unless we went outside. It was funny looking at Brits on holiday, though. “Don’t care that there is a gale blowing, I’ve paid my money and I am going to sit on a sun bed” It was only when sun beds (with passengers on them) started moving across the deck that the crew began putting them away and suggesting the passengers move inside.

 

The ship’s emergency drill today was a mock fire on deck 4 forward (towards the pointy bit, as the Captain said) so we watched the crew “evacuate” the staterooms and attack the “fire” It was quite interesting.

 

At 11-15am we went to listen to Robert Powell talking about his career and take questions from the audience. Taking pity on him, Nesta decided against telling him that when he was starring in Doomwatch on the BBC, he visited Nesta’s school (she was 11 at the time ) and she got his autograph! (Didn’t want to depress him too much about how old he is).

 

We went to watch a presentation on Muscat and have decided to book a trip so that we can see something of this rather exotic looking place.

 

Had a quiet afternoon and evening. Didn’t feel like yet more food, so only had a light snack before retiring for the evening.